Women's Basketball

Officiating Companies Seek To Enhance Consistency

INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA and the Collegiate Commissioners Association have created limited liability companies for men's and women's basketball officiating to enhance consistency during regular-season and postseason play.

The mission of both organizations is to increase the pool of officials; standardize messaging; more consistently apply playing rules, points of emphasis and mechanics; and remove "entry barriers" to those who are interested in becoming basketball officials.

The groups met for the first time in September. Gloria Nevarez, senior associate commissioner of the Pacific-10 Conference, was elected chair of the women's officiating board of managers, while Big Sky Conference Commissioner Doug Fullerton was elected chair of the men's board. Both will serve two-year terms.

The LLC approach streamlines the structure among conferences, their officiating coordinators and the officials themselves, most of whom operate as independent contractors. Officiating coordinators will be accountable to the LLC boards, which should unify evaluating processes and, ultimately, make the games be called more consistently across the country and throughout the year.

"The way a game is called in the West should be no different than a game in the East," said Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Commissioner Rich Ensor, who chaired the task force to form the two LLCs.

Fullerton said the basketball officiating LLCs should be similar to the one established for college football in 2007. He is a member of that board, too, and has seen the successes in standardizing instant replay and addressing player safety.

"We are going to have strategic discussions about college basketball, and that should be extremely healthy," Fullerton said. "Basketball conference coordinators of officials meet every year, and I've asked them, `What do you talk about?' They say, `We like to talkabout how we do things.' To me, that says that they are striving for and wanting help with structure."

Nevarez added: "Conferences invest time and resources into officiating, but right now we operate in our own officiating world. In this structure, we can roll out initiatives at a national level that can help improve officiating."

Neither officiating LLC will delve into assigning officials. That will still remain under the realm of the conferences. But the goal is to establish a uniform evaluation process for officials.

"To select the best, you need to compare apples to apples," Nevarez said. "One way to do that is create a system that has a common denominator. That way, you can best articulate who the best officials are nationally."

Fullerton believes this new officiating structure will benefit all men's and women's basketball stakeholders, particularly the student-athletes.

"It is something that has been long overdue," Fullerton said. "This is where we have strategic conversations about what the game should look like. We know college basketball fans expect a different game than any other levels of basketball. The best time to start something new is right now."

Men's and women's basketball officiating LLC objectives:

- Enhance consistency in the application and enforcement of rules, points of emphasis and mechanics during the regular season and postseason.- Develop consistent accountability standards.- Develop a standardized evaluation program and educational efforts.- Coordinate and manage officiating issues.- Diversify and improve officiating through defined entry processes.- Expand the current pool of officials and develop officiating opportunities.